Catching Dreams

Recently, I came across an article which suggested that, for some people, listening to another person share a dream is like being subjected to a play-by-play version of a family vacation. Boring—at best. How can that be? I wondered. I didn’t question the tedious aspects associated with hearing a holiday commentary that goes on and on. That part of the equation I understood all too well. A neighbor’s recent recitation about her cruise along the coast of Italy reminded me of how, beyond learning that it was pleasant and restorative, such a litany becomes a big yawn.

One particular afternoon before the pandemic hit, Barbara, (a lovely woman except when she donned her Trip Advisor groove), parked herself at my kitchen table, pulled out her cellphone, and proceeded to torture me by scrolling—frame-by-frame—through an endless set of photos from her vacation. Pausing only long enough to take one sip of her iced tea, she regaled me with the story behind every church steeple, lamp post, and pigeon-in-a-cobbled-plaza that she’d downloaded from her iCloud. To be fair, at least a few of those mind-numbing pics did include people—nearly all of them Barbara herself. Did I really want to see dozens of snaps of her voguing at an outdoor bar with her hand on her hip, toasting with a Bellini?

No, I certainly did not.

How much better it would have been had she simply said that they’d all had a wonderful time and that she would recommend the place to anyone and everyone.

However, to suggest, as had the author of the previous article, that sharing a dream was comparable to a recitation like Barbara’s struck me as out and out preposterous. Trading dreams with a loved one or a friend or a patient thrills me every time. As I discovered in my work as a clinical psychologist of nearly 30 years, dreams can be illuminating—and therefore valuable.

There, I discovered that dreams could be one way of catching and exploring inner conflict. The words “I had the craziest dream last night” often became a springboard—one way for the patient and me to explore a nighttime fantasy’s seemingly nonsensical elements. I believe that the dream’s role is something akin to a painting in motion, the unconscious caught in a moment and transformed into a puzzle to be solved. Always, it was the client’s unconscious associations to the particulars of the dream that provided the puzzle’s answer, which would always be a wholly personal one.

Over and over, this technique proved useful: my client and I became two investigators intent on solving a riddle—one that, once better understood, would bring new insights about a present-day emotional struggle. These insights would eventually lead to a more fruitful, less fraught life, and would push the treatment forward, as well.

Of course, dissecting dreams is not a prerequisite for successful psychotherapy. Indeed, many mental health practitioners do not consider them to be important, or even helpful. Some neuroscientists argue that dreams are only the decluttering of the day’s detritus. Nevertheless, many theories postulate that dreams do have value, both in and out of the consultation room, and can be tools for managing stress, consolidating memories—or even promoting creativity.

Throughout my tenure as a clinician, I prided myself on my willingness to assess and reassess “what worked,” “what didn’t,” and “for whom.” Yet, three years since I stepped away from a lifetime of listening to patients and instead wrote a candid memoir about my relationship with my mother, my belief in the merit of dreamwork remains unchanged. In this era of COVID, with telehealth visits suddenly dominating the ways mental health services are delivered, I struggle to imagine what this process will look like when we arrive at our “new normal.” Will tele-visits totally replace one-on-one live appointments?

In a short telemedicine visit, won’t the therapeutic art be lost, with facial expressions filtered by a computer screen and body language that isn’t visible? Call me “old school,” but I wonder whether therapy sessions conducted over the computer or phone aren’t somewhat artificial; they can hamper progress, with dreams or without. To transport oneself in this way is supremely convenient, I confess, but I don’t know how we ensure that this mode of treatment doesn’t come up short.

These days—as someone who no longer engages in the work which I was so privileged to do—I capture dreams by diving into my own sleep-delivered dispatches; decoding them, I then share those more amusing with people in my circle whom I trust to recognize their humor. This year, toasting the beginning of 2021 burrowed deep beneath the comforter that kept my bed warm, I awoke fresh from a dream that featured a frazzled me, and a famous actor whom I chased through dark caverns and ravines. One of those dreams that seemed to go on and on without any conclusion—it was the kind that screams really? Still, as a cliff-hanger with star power, it was one worth delving into, and to my surprise, an interpretation came quickly.

Later that morning, as my husband and I sat together over coffee and English muffins, I told the story to Phil. I beamed like a winner announcing my final Daily Double answer in a game of Jeopardy: the actor was Tom Hanks. Appearing not in film but in our family room. With COVID-19.

After relating this tale to Phil, I grinned. I’d had the dream on New Year’s Eve, the night when we’re all poised to look back on the year past and wonder about the twelve months ahead. Having recognized the well-known actor in my dream as Tom Hanks, I thought back to the last time I’d “encountered” him: a cable news segment where he had announced that he’d contracted the Coronavirus. Imagining why I might have been chasing Hanks, I’d let my mind float outward, only to realize that he was in fact a survivor—one who knew the path through COVID’s reign of terror.

The idea didn’t seem much of a stretch, particularly when I considered that someone as beloved as Tom Hanks—the man who’d played the soothing Mr. Rogers—might just be the guy I’d trust to lead me through the pandemic with a strong stride. Of course, the dream had ended abruptly. I wasn’t yet in the clear. Just as the year 2020 had ended in “real time,” my nighttime meanderings culminated in suspense. The danger does go unresolved in the year of 2021.

After relating this tale to Phil, I grinned. He was rolling his eyes in the familiar way that always indicated he was ready to provide some comic relief to my efforts at humor.

“Did you at least find my dream entertaining?” I asked. “Better than suffering through a drone on someone else’s Italian vacation?” My tone voice clarified the answer I expected to hear.

“Yes, Terry,” Phil answered, with a laugh of enthusiasm. “I most certainly did.”

Best,